I didn’t say INEC deliberately withheld uploading presidential election results – Lai Mohammed

Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture has denied saying that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately withheld the uploading of presidential election results from polling units.

Mohammed was quoted to have said during his engagement with journalists in Washington DC, United States, that the commission did not upload the election results due to cyber attacks threats.

However, responding to the reports, Mohammed said, “it is irresponsible and reckless.”

The minister who made the clarification on Wednesday in Washington DC, said the report was a deliberate falsehood, twisted by the online platforms to serve their selfish interests.

“This is irresponsible and reckless journalism .

“The truth of the matter is that, one of the major problems in the polity today, is a section of the media.

“These are people who cannot just belief that the Labour Party or the opposition did not win the election.

“They convinced themselves that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will loose the election.

“As a result of this there is nothing you want to say or do, they will find a way to twist it and make it what they want it to look like,” he said.

The minister said his statement was unambiguous and it was wrong for any media platform to have twisted it, to serve its own interest.

” What I said was that, during the election, there was a technical glitch and as a result of this and for INEC to protect the data, it suspended uploading of the results.

“INEC immediately set up a technical team to look into what went wrong and simultaneously floated another platform,” he said.

Mohammed added: “Of course,Premium Times has its own agenda .

“They inserted the word “deliberately” and omitted the phrase that it was in order to protect the sanctity of the data.

“They make it to look like INEC deliberately refused to upload the results’.